Gabriel Terra

Gabriel Terra Leivas (1 August 1873-15 September 1942) was President of Uruguay from 1 March 1931 to 19 June 1938, succeeding Juan Campisteguy and preceding Alfredo Baldomir. He was a member of the Colorado Party of Uruguay.

Biography
Gabriel Terra Leivas was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on 1 August 1873, and he became a faculty member at the University of Uruguay and a member of the Colorado Party of Uruguay. In 1925, he served as Minister for Industry and Employment, and he went on to serve as President from 1931 to 1938. In 1933, with the backing of the police (led by his brother-in-law Alfredo Baldomir), the army, and the National Party of Uruguay, he launched a self-coup and created a conservative and authoritarian dictatorship. While he continued many of the socialist reforms initiated by his predecessors, he faced much unrest against his rule, and he became close friends with Hitler and Mussolini while severing ties to Republican Spain and the Soviet Union. In 1938, he handed over power to his brother-in-law Baldomir, and he died in 1942.